My Special Olympian

The Special Olympics were today and Noah competed in the 25 meter wheelchair race. He did so good and received a first place ribbon!

He competed in the same event last year but didn’t do as well. He didn’t even want to finish last year and had to be pushed by someone else. But this year, he did all the work himself. He had his own little cheering squad of me, both grandparents, Holly, and Michael.

He was so cute. He didn’t know we were there yet. We had been watching the opening ceremonies and as soon as they were over, we started slowly making our way down to where the wheelchair races were. I was unsure of what time his event was when Holly said, “Um, Coley, Noah’s lined up!”

So we all quickly made it down to the area where the wheelchair races were. He was with his teacher in place, waiting at the starting line. I popped up there for a second and said hi to him, wished him luck, and then told him I would be waiting at the end. At that point, I don’t think he realized that my parents or anyone else was there with me.

The race started and he was going steady but surely. He looked very determined. His cheering squad was all at the end snapping photos and yelling, “Go Noah, you can do it! Come on, buddy! GO NOAH!” About half way down the lane, I think he realized everyone was there. He started getting very excited. When he was almost at the end, the volunteer at the end of the lane (they have volunteers assigned to each lane to cheer the kids on as they don’t always have their own cheering squad like Noahie did!) motioned for me to stand there. Noah finished and I was right there – he put his arms out and gave me a big hug and kisses. He was SO EXCITED! His “fans” (our family) started giving him hugs and telling him what a great job he did.

We all sat with him while he had his lunch waiting for his next event. Dad had to leave to go back to work and Holly and Michael had to leave to start moving into their new place. J made it but was late because he couldn’t get off work early – he did get to see Noah’s next event though. His 2nd event was the softball throw. He doesn’t really like this event and didn’t have near as much fun with it as he did the wheelchair race!